


ashes of rome

by uglygods



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lesbian Character, Mental Health Issues, Original Character-centric, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Prostitution, Reader Is A Shelby (Peaky Blinders), Slurs, Unhealthy Relationships, or technically oc, wwi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28681437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uglygods/pseuds/uglygods
Summary: Beth Shelby is a tragedy wrapped up in a drug-induced haze, foggy eyes, and droopy smiles as she stumbles her way through life.It's a little ironic how finding out she's in love with her best friend is the breaking point.
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. floral wall paper

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning: the main character has bipolar I disorder, and since this is the 1920s, she is undiagnosed and unmedicated. please read the tags!
> 
> this fister chapter is super short because its the prologue! future ones will be longer x

**16th of December 1917**

“Beth,” she ignored Finn tapping her shoulder, keeping her eyes focused on the wall, “Aunt Pol said to get you up, she’s made breakfast.”

No response.

Finn made a sort of huffing noise, trying to display his annoyance towards the girl. “Bethie, get up,” he pulled the blankets over her. She shivered, but didn’t make any other movement. Her eyes stayed focused on the floral wallpaper of her bedroom, the one she had begged for when she was little, and was beyond ecstatic when they somehow got enough money for it.

Only to cover one wall, though. So she stared at the light-colored flowers, grasping onto any sort of feeling. She found none, only the overwhelming numbness.

She didn’t hear the creaking floorboards of Finn leaving her bedroom. The most she moved was to pull the covers back up, curling up around herself to try and reserve warmth. December was always cold.

“Beth?” It was her aunt Polly now, her hand pressed against her forehead, “What’s wrong? Do you feel ill?”

“No,” her voice came out croaky.

The back of Aunt Polly’s hand moved to her cheek, “Why don’t you come eat? I’m sure it’ll make you feel better.”

She doubted that.

The next three weeks passed agonizingly slow. She never left her bed, her spot where her dull eyes focused on every small stroke that made up the tulips adorning her wall. Once or twice a day, Aunt Polly would make herself known, forcing her from bed, making her eat, making her bathe. Then she would tuck her in so softly, like she was made of the finest of china, and kiss her forehead.

Ada sat beside her a few times. She read to her, ran her fingers through her hair like she did when she was little, and told her all about her day. She would ask her questions about how she felt, receive no answer, and continue on like nothing has happened.

Then came the moment when life filled her body again. She hadn’t felt so energized in her life, like she drank every cup of coffee available in the house.

She can’t remember, not clearly, if she managed to get more than an hour of sleep at a time. She stayed up to four in the morning cleaning, organizing the bookshelves, baking a cake even though the sun had not yet graced her with its presence. She danced with John’s kids, holding their hands and placing their feet on her own as they did the waltz, the only music coming from her mouth.

She felt unstoppable, like she could be the burning sun within the sky, like she was so beautiful and so energized that nothing could damper her mood.

She was yet to know of the tragedy of her life - poor little Elizabeth Shelby, how her mind was so ruined she could hardly stand to live. (And how the highs were always ruined by the lows.)


	2. hung the moon

**Third of March 1918**

It was one of her in-between days, where she could get out of bed and say she slept for a good six hours. She wasn't brimming full of energy yet she was not quite lethargic, the perfect between. Like how it was the war took her brothers and the wallpaper took her sanity (it was so easy to blame something as simple as the wallpaper — was she at fault if the flowers pulled her in so close she didn't want to leave the bed?)

A cigarette was placed firmly between her lips, eyes trained forwards as she moved quickly through the streets, dodging puddles and piles of manure in second nature, used to it by now. She was lucky she managed to convince her aunt Pol to let her skirts rise a scandalizing inch higher, because it would have been awful to have and pick them up.

“Oi!” She turned her head, facing the doorway where stood a dark-skinned girl, around her age or a bit older, wearing one of the dresses Ada always did, the kinds that were in fashion in Paris, or something. “You’ve got another one of those?”

“What?” Beth removed the cigarette from her lips, blowing out a small gust of smoke, watching the girl’s dark eyes follow. Realizing she meant the cigarette itself, she gave a sort of half-smile, then shook her head, “No. I can give you this one, if you want?”

She offered her hands, Beth placed it within her grasp, and soon the girl was taking her own puffs from the small stick. “I’m Helene.”

“Beth,” she would have offered her hand but feared it would come across as too formal or strange, “how do you do, Helene?” Maybe she should have just gone with the handshake.

The girl. Helene, gave a good laugh, hand waving away a cloud of smoke as she dropped the stub and crushed it beneath her shoe, “A funny girl, you are, Beth.”

She hadn’t meant to be funny. “Thanks,” her hands moved for a second, unsure where to put them, and they stayed lifted in midair in an awkward manner. Neither mentioned it. “Is your brother Sam?”

“Yeah,” Helene eyed her, “why?”

“Mates with my brother,” Finn, that is. When she was better-minded she would keep an eye out for the two boys (or sometimes more), especially when they got around to hanging by the Cut. The last thing they needed was one turning up dead or otherwise badly wounded. Plus, with Martha passed and John’s four running about, Polly already had her hands full.

“So he is,” she moved from the doorway, “want to come in? Or are you too busy?”

Beth’s hand dropped, fingers curling up beside her body as she looked from Helene, who looked so out of place in her nice dress and pretty features, to the door, which was as depressing and smoke-stained as the rest of Birmingham.

“Am I allowed in?”

She snorted, “Bloody hope so, seeing as I’m inviting you.”

The inside of the house matched nothing of Helene. She looked like she should be a proper woman, from London or even maybe America, with a rich business father and a lovely housewife for a mother, and went to finishing school which taught her all these important things, which would go to waste when she followed in her mother’s footsteps and stayed home with her kids for a living.

Instead, she lived like any other working class in Birmingham — cheap furniture, riddled with holes and stains and worn well with use. Photos of the family hung on the wall (only a few, with one of all of the five Kingsleys; Helene, Sam, a war-aged son, and the parents.)

They had a fireplace, at least, and the kitchen had a faucet and a stone, which not everyone was lucky enough to have. Maybe even hot water, but that was unlikely.

“You’re the Shelby girl, aren’t you? The youngest one.”

“Ada’s older,” she eyed a mouse hole in one of the walls, “then Finn.” She wondered if they’d be visited by a mouse.

Helene sat on the tattered couch cushion, patting the one beside her, “Tommy’s the oldest?”

Beth snorted, “Arthur.” She sat down, moving her skirt so it flowed freely around her legs. “It goes: Arthur, Tommy, John, Ada, Beth, Finn. I’m Beth.”

“I could have figured,” Helene laid her house on her shoulder, much to her shock — what was she to do? Stay still? Move an arm around her?

No, it’s not like she is a man on a date. She was just invited inside.

It was silent for a long time, but a good kind of silence. Beth kept her eyes focused on the mouse hole, moving a hand up and down Helene’s back as she imagined a wide array of scenarios where a mouse made its presence known.

Helene shifted beside her, but didn’t lift her head. “Is Beth short for Bethany?”

“Elizabeth, like my aunt Polly.”

Helene hummed in response. Her stomach flipped, it sounded beautiful, like an angel came down from heaven just so she could be blessed.

Her head lifted from her shoulder and Helene’s pointer finger curled around a piece of Beth’s black hair, which was wild and untamed and fell in a mass of curls to her mid-back.

“I think we’ll be good friends, Bethie.”

God, she hoped so.

* * *

_Dear Tommy,_

_It’s my turn to write to you. I hope you enjoy the photo of us, John also got one that’s just his kids. Ada’s writing to him but she always forgets to put in the photos so Aunt Pol and I do it for her._

_Finn’s grown half an inch! His hair grows quicker too, like Arthur’s, so Ada always has to cut it._

_I’ve made a new friend, Helene Kingsley. She said her brother Jamie is in France too, he’s John’s age. She’s very pretty and has the best jokes — like this one:_

_Grandmother: "How useless girls are today. None of you know what needles are for!”_

_Girl: "How dumb you are, grandma. Of course, I know what needles are for. They're to make the graphophone play."_

_I know you’re not a joke person, but it made Finn and her brother Sam laugh loudly, though I guess they are nine and find everything funny._

_How have you been? I miss you a lot, though I don’t miss sharing a room with Ada. Your mattress is lumpy, Tommy, we’ll have to buy you a new one._

_Aunt Pol is giving me the stink eye, I think she’s realized I have skipped doing classwork in favor of writing to you._

_I still miss you. And Arthur. And John. It’s not the same without my older brothers here, and even though Ada won’t admit it I know she misses you too._

_Much love,_  
_Beth_

* * *

If one would let her, Beth could spend hours on the topic of the Kingsley girl.

Helene placed the stars and hung the moon, she pulled the sun across the sky so the earth’s riches could grow, and she kept away the numbness that would one day come to claim Elizabeth Shelby’s life.

With every touch, electricity sparked through Beth’s veins and she felt so alive, but not the alive she felt before. She fell asleep at a normal time within Helene’s arms (like all friends do) and woke up to her smile and would kiss her cheek before she climbed out the window and down the ladder.

There were negatives to Helene Kingsley, though ones Beth would not dare to speak. Her fancy clothes and pretty features were not just for her eyes to see — she took men late into the night, shady money exchanges under the moon and pleasing their mighty egos with her body.

She sold her body.

If Beth could pick one thing in the whole world to become sacred, so no man with their dirty fingers and leering stares could no longer touch, it would be Helene.

Helene with her beautiful laugh and the crease under her eyes when she smiled. Her fingers, soft from the gloves of petroleum jelly she wore at night, tracing her features like Beth was the one to be appreciated.

Never in her life had she met someone who made her feel so whole.


End file.
